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SWOP/SEX WORKER media outlets, please forward to your chapters and list serves and pick up the phone or shoot out an email.
The media constantly find ways to degrade sex workers by prefacing their identity with some sensational thing like “drug addict prostitute” or in this case “cross-dressing prostitute”. Be an ally to trans sex workers and all transwomen who experience degrading identifications and contact Bob Ellis and tell him his attempt at grabbing people with headlines is offensive to even his readers.

I emailed Bob and said this:

Hi Bob!

I was forwarded a story titled “Body of cross-dressing prostitute found” and I am offended by your media outlets attempt at grabbing headlines. The body that was found is a human being whose identity has not yet been determined. I find it disrespectful to acknowledge anyone, dead or alive, with gender identity without an individuals own self-identification. Forward thinking communities have a better sense of this self determination within the LGBTQ community, and so do your readers. The term “cross dressing” was left behind with the J. Edgar Hoover Era.

Also, as I am sure your readers gravitate to the word prostitute even without the sensational prefix of “cross-dresser”, but a more appropriate term is “sex worker”. This is a term that has been accepted by media for over a decade, and the term “prostitute” is commonly used only when the effort to degrade a sex worker is deliberate.

Please know that is is not lost upon your readers that this is only an attempt to work these awful insults into bold print upon your magazine. The story was incomplete except the title, and people understand the implications involved when identifying a murder with sensational language and nothing else. The “article” is just lazy reporting, capitalizing off of the deceased.

Thank you for reading,
K. Infinite

Take some time to call him if you can, you don’t have to be as mean as I was;) The story can be found here. Literally three sentences.